The subject matter discussed in the background section should not be assumed to be prior art merely as a result of its mention in the background section. Similarly, a problem mentioned in the background section or associated with the subject matter of the background section should not be assumed to have been previously recognized in the prior art. The subject matter in the background section merely represents different approaches, which in and of themselves may also be inventions.
Resources on the Internet, such as servers and networked devices are identified by a Uniform Resource Identifier (URI). A Uniform Resource Locator or Universal Resource Locator (URL) is a type of URI that provides a means of locating the resource by describing its primary access mechanism (e.g., its network “location”). A URL is typically the address of a specific web page on the World Wide Web (e.g., http://www.example.com/index.html), and a domain name specifies the name of the web site that hosts web pages (example.com). A domain name may identify one or more IP addresses. The domain name is typically translated into an IP address by a Domain Name System (DNS) resolver.
Specific web pages can be made available under several different URLs through techniques such as URL redirection (or URL forwarding) or domain redirection (domain forwarding). URL redirection is commonly used to address the following issues: error correction or redirects to a primary URL from a similar URL (e.g., erroneous www.exsmple.com requests are sent to www.example.com); moving a site to a new domain; substituting short aliases for long domain names (e.g. bofa.com redirects to bankofamerica.com); or as a ploy in phishing attacks, to confuse the user as to which site they are on in an attempt to collect private information about the user
Current techniques used to achieve the redirection include manual redirection, by having the requested URL page return a link in the web page requesting that the user click the link to navigate to the suggested URL; HTTP 3xx status codes (300, 301, 302, 303, and 307), which are configured on the web server that hosts the requested domain or URL (this typically requires administrative access to the web server); server-side scripting, which is commonly used when the web site author does not have administrative access to the web server to configure the HTTP 3xx status code; meta refresh tag, which is accomplished by setting a meta tag value in the header of the web page that is returned to the user and then the web browser performs the redirection; JavaScript redirection, which is similar to a meta refresh tag but is accomplished through the use of JavaScript; and frame redirects, wherein the HTML frame contains the target page. In this case the browser continues to display the requested URL instead of the redirected URL
The above methods handle redirection, but do so on a limited scale (i.e., site-by-site and page-by-page) and require that changes and settings be made on the web site or web server that will make the redirection. These rules do not allow for quickly creating or changing the redirection rules on an ongoing basis or provide a means for managing and updating several redirect rules all in one location. In addition, the rules do not allow for user specific redirection customization whereby one user is taken to site A and a different user is taken to site B.
With the proliferation of web sites (between 2005 and 2010 the number of web sites doubled, and was expected to pass two billion in 2010) the methods of URL redirection listed above do not meet the current needs of businesses to manage large sets of redirections that must be constantly reviewed, updated and allow for users specific options that can affect where the redirection takes the end user. In general, current redirection systems identify sites as potentially bad sites (e.g., malware or phishing sites) and then simply block the sites, forcing the user to find and correct his or her own errors.
The rise in direct navigation, in which a user attempts to navigate to a specific web site by typing its domain name directly into a web browser address bar has also led to an increase in cybersquatting activity, which relies on a steady stream of traffic to spurious domains generated by input errors made by users. Cybersquatters profit from this traffic through various monetization schemes, including massive pay-per-click link farms, affiliate fraud, and phishing. Over the past few years, direct navigation has grown in popularity due to brands registering and utilizing specialized web addresses to direct users to focused information online. It has further been adopted as users became more comfortable with browsing the Web and the rapid growth in mobile Internet. With billions of Web requests being made daily, a large percentage of those requests include natural typing mistakes resulting from users' incorrectly striking keys, misspelling domains, dropping letters, etc. Input errors during navigation are exacerbated on mobile devices (e.g., tablets and smartphones) that have small keyboards.
In order to handle this growing problem of web-based navigation, a new method for managing, configuring, and delivering IP address redirections is needed.
What is further needed is a scalable method for creating, managing and performing large numbers of IP address redirections that are being updated on a daily basis. Present known techniques typically do not address user specific customization or the ability to override redirections.